Accountability in the global health regime : a critical examination of the institutional policy and practice of the global fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria partnership programme in Ghana

The overarching objective of this thesis is to undertake a critical examination of the institutional accountability policy and practice of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) in the context of its partnership programme in Ghana. The Global Fund is a global public-private partnership (GPPP) in health engaged in public health policy processes worldwide. As a GPPP, the policy mandate that underpins its global response to fight the aforementioned diseases requires it to enter into partnerships with recipient countries to finance their national health policy responses and strategies to tackle these diseases. Situating accountability within the context of the shift from an international health to a global health regime, the study argues that the emergence of GPPPs in health and the formal policy mandate and decision-making powers they exercise have had knock-on consequences for understanding accountability in the global health regime. This is because while the understanding of accountability for public health policy processes in the international health regime revolved solely around state-based and state-led accountability processes, it is no longer so in current global health regime. Since these GPPPs are not states, they derive their understanding of accountability from the nature and character of their individual policy and practice arrangements. However, despite contestation around the Global Fund’s accountability in global health literature, this literature has little to say on the question of how the Global Fund itself (as a partnership organisation) understands accountability in policy and how this understanding informs its practice in specific settings of global health. Thus, this study contributes to literature on GPPPs’ accountability in global health by specifically exploring how the Global Fund understands accountability in policy and how this understanding informs its accountability in practice, in particular in relationship to its implications for country ownership of health policy in Ghana. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in Ghana, and guided by a critical political economy approach, this study will demonstrate how: 1) the Global Fund’s institutional policy and practice arrangements undermine accountability to the government and to those affected by their activities; 2) the Global Fund’s practice of country ownership is reflective of conditional ownership despite the fact that the Global Fund claims to promote country ownership as a core principle of its accountability practice in aid recipient countries; and 3) the accountability policy and practice instruments of the Global Fund are not politically neutral, but are rather a function of relations of power. To improve the ability of Ghana (and other recipient countries) to own their developmental policies, a reordering of global economic relations is needed, with a renewed emphasis and focus on economic justice and human rights. Such a reordering will improve the material capabilities (control of and access to global centres of production, finance and technology) of aid recipient countries. This will empower Ghana (and other recipient countries) to play a more dominant, rather than a subsidiary role in how the global health landscape is organised and financed and in policy processes undertaken by global health policy institutions like the Global Fund. In this way, Ghana (and other developing countries) will be able to limit and mitigate the dominance and influence of powerful donors who shape the institutional policy and practice arrangements of global health policy institutions like the Global Fund.

Accountability in Adult Basic Education: The Marginalization of Adults with Difficulty Reading

Federal accountability policies requiring rapid, measurable outcomes have increasingly shaped the nature and type of public literacy services available to adults. However, little empirical research has explored the impact of accountability policies on program practice in adult basic education, and almost no research has focused on the effect on services for adults who have difficulty reading. This ethnographically grounded research article explores one publicly funded adult basic education program’s efforts to comply with federal accountability policy and the impact these efforts had on services for adults with difficulty reading. Findings suggest that efforts to comply with accountability policies resulted in instructional practices that limited students’ opportunities for substantive engagement with reading and in program policies that excluded students who did not produce outcomes from participation. The findings also suggest that in the context of accountability pressures, student marginalization became normalized as an ordinary part of practice.

Penerapan Prinsip Akuntabilitas Lembaga Amil Zakat Dompet Amal Insani (Lazdai) Lampung

An accountability is one of the important topics in scientific studies and public administration practice. This is because the public pays great attention to the implementation of policies, programs, projects and routine activities carried out by public sector institutions. However, in practice, we often find practices in public institutions that do not reflect accountability, especially in the zakat sector. This research uses descriptive research with a qualitative approach. Data collection techniques are observation, interviews and document review studies. The results of this study include the legal accountability of the application of rules or laws related to the collection of zakat that has not been applied, namely the preparation of the zakat collection report required by BAZNAS Bandar Lampung City twice a year and only once a year, the target of collecting zakat which refers to the Decree of the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia number 333 of 2015 that LAZ at the district / city level was able to collect as much as Rp. 3,000,000,000 (three billion rupiah) has not been successful, process accountability, program accountability, policy accountability. The accountability of the process of implementing the existing zakat collection procedure flow has been running effectively and efficiently. The process of internal obstacles consists of the lack of qualified human resources in terms of law and technology. The accountability of the zakat collection program is divided into two, counters and electronic. The policy accountability in the policy-making stages originates from the division meeting material which is then brought to the working meeting of the board of directors and executives for discussion

Analisis Akuntabilitas dan Transparansi Pengelolaan APBDes di Desa Lembah Kecamatan Dolopo Kabupaten Madiun

The management of the budget at the level of the village is an important thing because of a limited budget as a means of achieving welfare, But it should be noted that it needs to use measurements So that it can be known whether the management of we already have the by the regulations. This research is qualitative descriptive with an emphasis on depiction studies to answer the formulation of the problem at hand. The results of the study explained that indicators of the quality of accountability the management of APBDes lembah Village, Indicators include: accountability leadership, accountability process, accountability, and accountability policy program implemented in The village Lembah administration. In terms of interviews with informants that start over the formulation of management APBDes to accountability APBDes have included all society elements village, all criteria met. Pengelolaan anggaran di level desa merupakan hal penting karena anggaran merupakan alat untuk mencapai kesejahteraan, namun perlu diperhatikan bahwa perlu adanya pengukuran terhadap penggunaannya, sehingga dapat diketahui apakah pengelolaan anggaran sudah sesuai dengan aturan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dengan penekanan pada penggambaran hasil kajian untuk menjawab rumusan masalah yang ada. Hasil penelitian menjelaskan bahwa indikator akuntabilitas pengelolaan APBDes Desa Lembah, indikator tersebut meliputi: akuntabilitas kepemimpinan, akuntabilitas proses, akuntabilitas program dan akuntabilitas kebijakan yang dilaksanakan Pemerintah Desa Lembah. Ditinjau dari hasil wawancara dengan informan bahwa mulai dari awal proses penyusunan APBDes sampai pertanggungjawaban pengelolaan APBDes sudah mengikutsertakan seluruh unsur masyarakat desa, semua kriteria terpenuhi.

Is “Whole Child” Education Obsolete? Public School Principals’ Educational Goal Priorities in the Era of Accountability

Objectives: Working under the constraints of external accountability policy, public school principals are faced with challenges in prioritizing educational goals. Using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data sets, this study examined the nature and sources of changes in principals’ educational goal priorities in the era of accountability, including the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Method: Difference-in-differences method was used to compare the national average trends of educational goal priorities between public and private schools during 1991–2012 period. Comparative interrupted time series method was also used to explore the impact of NCLB accountability policy on those trends across 50 states. At the school level, logistic regression was applied to examine the effect of NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress status on principals’ educational priorities. Results: While academic goals gained traction over the 1991–2012 period, there were setbacks for other goals of education, particularly personal growth and vocational skills. Notably, public schools’ priority changes were more drastic than private schools’ changes. The divergent trends largely persisted after NCLB across the states. On the other hand, public school principals who previously failed to meet NCLB targets gave more emphasis on basic skills and less emphasis on academic excellence and personal growth. Conclusion: Public school principal’s priorities on academic goals have been shaped by test-driven accountability measures, while other equally important goals have been possibly deprioritized. It gives implications for the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, in which educational leaders can redesign accountability systems and incorporate nonacademic measures for whole child education.